Page 48 of Commanding Flame and Shield
Guilt had been my constant companion in the weeks since we’d left Layla in Ivy Springs. She’d been so kind. Too kind, really. And I couldn’t wrap my head around her grace. Or how I’d stepped all over her beautiful soul and abandoned her. Abandoned her to a world more broken than she could even know. But she was safer with me gone—without angels and demons battling in her life. I had done the right thing.
At least, that’s what everyone told me. Aren had reassured me as often as Alec had, although Alvara had said it only once. She seemed to feel my guilt, and the pain around the subject, and she turned deep into herself as we returned to Grayshell. Although there hadn’t been much time for them to trouble themselves with my broken heart.
Just before we’d made our jump home, Alvara had cocked her head to the side, her beautiful features twisted with confusion. The light and joy I’d grown used to in her eyes guttered. She pursed her lips, turned her gaze to me and quietly said, “Something is wrong.”
With no further explanation, she’d hooked her arm in mine, and we jumped anyway.
When we arrived, chaos and a desperate panic greeted us. The trepidation saturated the air and swept down my spine the moment my feet hit the ground. The great hall was a cacophony of voices, hundreds of souls buzzing about the room. There was no lingering scent of food or hum of music. I’d never been there without someone offering me a morsel of something irresistible.
Most of them wore spirit armor, and the electric charge of war was thick on the air. Two colossal men who wore their wavy hair at their shoulders, sections twisted out of their faces and pinned back with gold, came rushing forward the moment we landed. They held spears in one hand, bows slung across their backs, and each had a sword sheathed at their side. I studied them as they approached us, and realized they embodied the Greek soldiers of ancient times. If I didn’t know Aren was the oldest among them, I would have guessed he had scooped them right out of the battle of Troy. Both quickly slammed a fist across their heart, kissed it, and extended it to Ally, in formal greeting. A salute of sorts.
Head and shoulders above me, and half again as wide, the soldiers were Aren’s size, if not more substantial. The blonde man spoke first, not hesitating to reach out and take Alvara’s hand to turn her in the direction they were rushing.
“Alvara, thank God. We need you in armor yesterday.”
Her eyes grew wide and frantic the moment he touched her skin, and her voice came out haggard and breathless. “Take me to him. Now.”
“Already on our way,” the dark-haired one boomed.
Two of our kind were missing. Both from another coven in the hierarchy. And while they were only supposed to report in that morning, there wasn’t a soul in Grayshell that could reach their minds. Even as the rookie, my blood went cold as they explained the details on our hurried walk to Aren.
The men burst into the war room, but Ally hesitated on the threshold, eyes on her feet as her chest rose and fell, faster with each draw.
“Ally?” I lowered my head, trying to catch her gaze. Her full lips were parted slightly, eyes far away, as though she could look through the stones to the dimension below. She raised a trembling hand to rub at her furrowed brow, shaking her head. She breathed something that sounded a lot likeI can't see them.“What?”
She blew out a hard breath, straightening her spine and dropping her fingers to the knife at her hip as her eyes flicked to mine. That lethal power danced like embers within them, running goosebumps down my spine. “I should’ve been here,” she breathed in disbelief.
“Ally, don’t do that—this isn't your fault.” The words rushed out as I watched her slender shoulders pull back in defiance.
“Yes. It fucking is.” She clenched her jaw, squeezing the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.
“Al?” Aren’s voice carried from the room beyond. “Westerlunds are on the line—coming in hot with allies from New York.”
When her eyes opened, they’d gone stone cold, and she drug down a breath, gave me a curt nod that seemed more dismissal than direction, and turned to face The Commander.
Being earth bound,guarded by Alec and I, had left her detached from the others. Aren had admitted it had left a hole in their defenses, but he would never have blamed her.Couldn’twhen he knew better than anyone, the burden of her gift. But in Ally's eyes, every single soul in Grayshell was hers to protect.
I'd never met the lost souls, but Sebastian was a skilled healer, and Skyler—Ally called her Sky—was a master at potions and poultices. Both from Saraya’s coven. The healer had not returned to Grayshell since they’d vanished, determined to track down her people herself. Over the next weeks, she checked in telepathically about twice a day to update the hierarchy on what she’d learned, but even Saraya’s trails went cold. We joined in the search the moment Alvara had left the war room, popping back and forth between Chicago and Grayshell like manic inter-dimensional popcorn kernels. But I could tell Alvara expected the very worst. Mission after mission revealed no more information on the missing souls.
Previously, I'd been the only mark she’d ever struggled to locate, and if she could not hear Sebastian and Sky, more than likely, there were no longer minds to find.
Beyond Layla, I felt the constant burden of the guilt weighing her down. It had been my training that had required her absence. My shield that kept her oblivious when they cried out for help.
“Stop blaming yourself, mate. There’s no point. We can’t change it,” Alec reassured me as we sparred one afternoon. “If they’re there to find, Alvara will find them.”
His confidence did nothing to put my mind at rest.
“You said this bar is a hangout for demons?” I couldn’t hide the skepticism in my voice. A hangout. For demons. At a bar, blasting “Rebel In The F.D.G” by W.A.S.P. so loudly the air and asphalt vibrated with it. This world got stranger and stranger.
Ally managed a forced smirk at my tone, but Aren shot me a sideways glance. His telltale sense of humor seemed to have vanished with the missing souls.
We entered the bar, filled with cigarette smoke, and red neon light. The smell of nacho cheese and spilled beer was heavy on the night air. As we entered, the entire place went silent, save for the music, and the patrons stilled to stone. Dozens of dark eyes, all ringed with exhaustion, were on our group. We wore human attire, but I could tell from Ally’s quick survey, the rapid ebb and swell of her power, and the unabashed snarl across her lips, there were no humans here to cover for.
The place erupted into chaos as Ally, Alec, Ansel, and Lana dove into the room. Rather than drawing swords, each pulled out a Glock. Each silver bullet met its mark as though without effort, and the bodies sizzled into puddles of black, steaming viscous fluid on the floor. It took them only seconds to vanquish two or three dozen of them. The creatures didn’t even have time to react.
A lone demon stood on the far side of the room, tucked behind the bar with a glass and towel still in his hand. His head was cocked sideways, and pale lips curled back over his teeth, eyes black as asphalt. There were no whites around its eyes, and it did not seem to fear the warriors’ guns, now trained on him. They formed a half circle, cornering him, as Aren advanced.
“Where are they!?”
